MANILA CALLING #2: Tiffany Naval Jr., Kilusan Collective

by Leonard

Tito Len Takes Shitty Pictures #2 - Flashy!

I KNOW, I know — my aim is off AGAIN. It’s just because I was busy reading. From back to front, because I got it wrong then front to back — it didn’t matter because I was just happy to see what I was seeing. What was it about Tiffany Naval’s Exhibit piece that got me so excited that I felt like a child again? I won’t say because, well, you should go to Rolly’s Garage (124 Ossington) yourselves to check out the Kilusan Exchange Exhibit (incidentally, if you go tonite you also get to be part of visiting artist Carlos Celdran’s Artist Talk @630pm).

What I will say is that when I do have a child, I want them to know who Jose Rizal was before knowing who Abraham m-f*ckin Lincoln was. That knowing how to say ‘Bus’ is good, but they should know that a Jeepney is even prettier, Sampaguitas smell MUCH better than Roses and Oh– that Philippine Eagles eat monkeys and are way more badass than penguins are.

They’ll get that other stuff at school anyway — but no one is going to tell them about a carabao, and about rice and rice farmers and why they should be proud of where THEY come from too. One might define this as ‘not art’, but I’d beg to differ.

Art is an expression of life and so are children. So in effect, our children ARE our art — are they not? If this is what Tiffany Naval’s piece (she actually has more than 1 on display) is trying to say, then even this art neophyte GETS IT. I get it.

What happens when you take a group of Canadian-born Filipino artists and throw them across the ocean to go face-to-face with the land that they were raised by, but never knew?

THE PURPOSE
Explore the story to be told of having one identity rooted in two cultures

THE PROCESS
A trip to the Philippine metropolis of Manila
An intense exchange with Carlos Celdran, the dubbed “Pied Piper of Manila”
And the integration of it all back into the Canadian metropolis of Toronto

THE RESULT
A multimedia & multi-perspective cultural art show-of-sorts.